Father admits hiding body

A plea bargain has resulted in maximum prison sentences for Robert Sanchez Nunez, who confessed to concealing his son's body in an ice chest.

He pleaded guilty Friday to enhanced aggravated perjury for a 20-year sentence and a $500 fine, according to a news release from 47th District Attorney Randall Sims' office. A probation violation on a charge of assault causing bodily injury to a family member netted him a sentence of eight years to be served at the same time as the longer one.

The statute of limitations had run out for other charges Nunez could have faced, according to the release.

Authorities said Nunez, 37, lied to a grand jury about the location of his infant son, Miguel Nunez. A resident of a home in the 1600 block of North Seminole Street formerly occupied by Nunez said his son found the boy's body on July 19 in a plastic ice chest in the attic.

The father had maintained through the years he had given the boy to an unknown couple or family members, according to a court filing. At one point he told the boy's mother, Brenda Wheeler, that Miguel was in Mexico.

Wheeler told police the son was about 8 months old at the time of his disappearance in April 2004, according to a complaint against Nunez.

Nunez eventually told investigators his son died while in his care in 2004 and he put the body in the attic, according to the complaint.

The condition of the body prevented investigators from establishing a cause of death, authorities said.